SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
GrayShift is a new company that promises to unlock even iPhones running the latest version of iOS for a relatively cheap price.
In a sign of how hacking technology often trickles down from more well-funded federal agencies to local bodies, at least one regional police department has already signed up for GrayShift's services, according to documents and emails obtained by Motherboard.
As Forbes reported on Monday, GrayShift is an American company which appears to be run by an ex-Apple security engineer and others who have long held contracts with intelligence agencies. In its marketing materials, GrayShift offers a tool called GrayKey, an offline version of which costs $30,000 and comes with an unlimited number of uses. For $15,000, customers can instead buy the online version, which grants 300 iPhones unlocks.
This is what the Indiana State Police bought, judging by a purchase order obtained by Motherboard. The document, dated February 21, is for one GrayKey unit costing $500, and a "GrayKey annual license—online—300 uses," for $14,500. The order, and an accompanying request for quotation, indicate the unlocking service was intended for Indiana State Police's cybercrime department. A quotation document emblazoned with GrayShift's logo shows the company gave Indiana State Police a $500 dollar discount for their first year of the service.
Importantly, according to the marketing material cited by Forbes, GrayKey can unlock iPhones running modern versions of Apple's mobile operating system, such as iOS 10 and 11, as well as the most up to date Apple hardware, like the iPhone 8 and X.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday March 11 2018, @07:31AM
Yeah, this. Reminds me of that hacking contest in which an ex-NSA employee won. Come on, that's stacking the deck at best and a national security violation at worst.
Then you wonder why that is allowed. Marketing for the NSA, or just a plain unfair advantage for profit like how our congressmen can legally insider-trade while the rest of us cannot. I recall (not that I am a speculator) "blackout" periods in which it was forbidden for employees of my defense-contractor employer to trade during certain periods.
It doesn't matter even if they had approval from the alphabet soup to indirectly reveal vulns -- the deck is still stacked in their favor. Perks of the trade, perhaps, but still unethical ones.